CHENEY asks if they needed approval for wiretapping, Congress said ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Monday, Dec 22, 2008
In an interview with Fox Newss Chris Wallace yesterday morning, Vice President Cheney defended the Bush administrations warrantless wiretapping program, and claimed that the congressional leaders briefed on the program wholeheartedly approved. In fact, Cheney claimed, when the White House asked if it needed congressional approval for the program, they unanimously agreed it did not:
CHENEY: We briefed them on the program and what wed achieved and how it worked and asked them should we continue the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike. All agreed: Absolutely essential to continue the program. I then said, Do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislating authorization to continue what were doing? They said absolutely not. Dont do it.
Cheneys startling claims run directly counter to accounts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). Rather than asking for congressional input, Pelosi and Rockefeller said in 2005 that Cheney simply informed them of what was going on — and ignored their objections:
PELOSI: The Bush Administration considered these briefings to be notification, not a request for approval. As is my practice whenever I am notified about such intelligence activities, I expressed my strong concerns during these briefings.
ROCKEFELLER: The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program.
Other congressional members who attended those briefings have said that they were told only the barest outlines of the program. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Jane Harman (D-CA) said that the White House never disclosed that it was skirting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) said the same thing:
The assumption was that if we did that, we would do it pursuant to the law, the law that regulates the surveillance of national security issues. And there was no suggestion that we were going to begin eavesdropping on United States citizens without following the full law. There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to use that as the subterfuge to begin unwarranted, illegal — and I think unconstitutional — eavesdropping on American citizens.
Whats more, Rockefeller, then vice-chairman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote a hand-written letter to Cheney in 2003 to reiterate [his] concerns about the wiretapping program. I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities, he wrote.
Cheney claims to have suggested seeking congressional approval right away. However, the White House put up a stiff fight just a few years later, when Congress finally sought to impose oversight of the wiretapping program. The Vice President has already presented misleading infomration about the dates and frequency of these supposed briefings; now he appears to be offering misleading descriptions of them.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• cheney
• bush
• obama
• biden
• 911
• wtc7
• eugenics
• monsanto
• wiretapping
• congress
• pelosi
• rockefeller
• fluoride
• flu
• shots

[secretcombinations]

What a Joke these guys are trampling over the CONSTITUTION!

[MrFabregas1987]

Did they ask for the wars?

[bkp100]

The naive still believe "standard" precautions and practices can safeguard our citizenry... It's the old "cops have semi auto pistols, and crooks have uzis". Do you not realize the govt. REQUIRES non-standard measures to compete with, and catch up with today's technology savvy terrorists??? Do you honestly believe we had ZERO domestic terror issues, after 911, because we were simply lucky????

You people are pathetic...

[MrDeppness]

Our country was set up so that new laws and legislation are supposed to be hard to pass. Is Cheney really saying Congress just shrunk from debate and let him legislate any unspeakable crime he wanted to?

[JixMa]

@joneselius

"Just speculating here. Have you seen Kymatica yet?"

No, I haven't yet. I haven't even heard of it until your mention here. I'll check it out. Thanks.

[shmeet]

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllllll­lllllllllllllllll Shit!

lol first he said "We DID brief congress", Then he said " ...we asked them if we needed to bring this to to the congress for additional legislation" Sad!  Just when america was catching up with the rest of world, these bastards from a dead era have go pulling us backwards!

[JixMa]

[5]Everyone should see "Zeitgeist: The Movie" (2007) and "Zeitgeist: Addendum" (2008). It's at ZeitgeistMovie(.)com as well as it being posted here on YouTube in parts.

See it! It really puts things into perspective and it will open your eyes! It shows clearly how the Elites have manipulated and controlled the masses through lies and mythology from the very beginning of Civilization. They control us like sheep through fear and through force from their police, military and mercenary forces.

[JixMa]

[4]I truly feel that a new Dark Age is about to befall the world and I doubt that the people are capable of stopping it. THEY, the Elite few, have all the power. They control the cops, the military and the mercenaries to protect them, their wealth, their property and their positions of power.

We're all doomed to live under their totalitarian system that they're ushering in. We all will have to live as the slaves did under Imperial Rome with their foot on our throats. It's all so astonishing!

[JixMa]

[3]And if the press had done ITS duty to report what was going on, rather than being such a rah-rah cheerleader that so exuberantly cheered on Bush/Cheney's drumbeat to war to such a fever pitch, I doubt Bush/Cheney could have gotten away with all their lawbreaking and criminal behavior, and many people now dead, would still be alive, and the rights we lost would still be with us.

[JixMa]

[2]It is said, "Evil thrives when good men do nothing." I blame the willing accomplices in Congress as well as the stupid, blind & complicit Mass Media that allowed Bush/Cheney to run amuck and unfettered to usher in their New World Order NeoCon agenda.

Had the Congress done its sworn duty to uphold the laws, preserve, protect & defend the Constitution of the US and impeach those that broke said laws, things would not have gone the way that they did & this new quasi-fascist gov't be the norm.

[JixMa]

[1]We still have a Constitution? I thought it was turned into toilet paper with which those motherfuckers in Congress wiped their collective asses with.

You know what? I totally blame those in Congress for what Bush/Cheney were allowed to get away with. Those in Congress knew full well what Ole W. & Dick were asking for doing and what they were actually doing in the end. They could have tied their hands and stopped them at any time. They could have impeached them for their crimes at any time.